Novel digital memory devices were fabricated with a thermally and dimensionally stable polyimide containing carbazole moieties in its side groups by using a simple and conventional solution coating process. The devices exhibit excellent unipolar ON and OFF switching behavior. With very low power consumption, the devices can be repeatedly written, read, and erased in air. The ON/OFF current ratio of the devices is high up to 1011. The high ON/OFF switching ratio and stability of the devices, as well as their repeatable writing, reading, and erasing capability with low power consumption, open up the possibility of the mass production of high performance non‐volatile memory devices at low cost.

We have synthesized a new thermally and dimensionally stable polyimide, poly(4,4'-amino(4-hydroxyphenyl)diphenylene hexafluoroisopropylidenediphthalimide) (6F-HTPA PI). 6F-HTPA PI is soluble in organic solvents and is thus easily processed with conventional solution coating techniques to produce good quality nanoscale thin films. Devices fabricated with nanoscale thin PI films with thicknesses less than 77 nm exhibit excellent unipolar write-once-read-many-times (WORM) memory behavior with a high ON/OFF current ratio of up to 10(6), a long retention time and low power consumption, less than +/-3.0 V. Furthermore, these WORM characteristics were found to persist even at high temperatures up to 150 degrees C. The WORM memory behavior was found to be governed by trap-limited space-charge limited conduction and local filament formation. The conduction processes are dominated by hole injection. Thus the hydroxytriphenylamine moieties of the PI polymer might play a key role as hole trapping sites in the observed WORM memory behavior. The properties of 6F-HTPA PI make it a promising material for high-density and very stable programmable permanent data storage devices with low power consumption.

This study reports the synthesis and properties (in particular, the electrical switching characteristics) of a new high-performance polyimide (PI), poly(3,3'-di(4-(diphenylamino)benzylidenyliminoethoxy)-4,4'-biphenylene hexafluoroisopropylidenediphthalimide) (6F-HAB-TPAIE PI). This PI polymer bears diphenylaminobenzylidenylimine moieties as side groups and is dimensionally stable up to 280 degrees C and thermally stable up to 440 degrees C. In devices fabricated with the PI polymer as an active memory layer, the active PI polymer was found to operate at less than +/-2 V in electrically bistable unipolar and bipolar switching modes by controlling the compliance current. The PI polymer layer exhibits repeatable writing-reading-erasing capability with high reliability in ambient air conditions as well as at high temperatures up to 130 degrees C. This PI polymer also exhibits a high ON/OFF current ratio up to 10(9). The observed nonvolatile memory behaviors are due to Schottky emission and local filament formation. This study has demonstrated that this thermally, dimensionally stable PI polymer is a promising material for mass production at low cost for high-performance, programmable, nonvolatile memory devices that can be operated with low power consumption in unipolar and bipolar switching modes.

Electrically programmable fuse‐type polymer memory devices based on hyperbranched copper phthalocyanine polymer thin films are fabricated. The devices have novel write‐once‐read‐many (WORM) memory characteristics, with a high ON/OFF current ratio (of 106) and a high electrical stability, thus opening up the possibility of a low‐cost mass production of high‐performance, nonvolatile polymer memory devices.

New brush polymers with various numbers of bristle ends incorporating phosphorylcholine (PC) moieties are synthesized. The polymers are thermally stable up to 175 °C and form good‐quality films with conventional spin‐, roll‐, and dip‐coating, and subsequent drying processes. Interestingly, all these brush polymers, as a PC‐containing polymer, demonstrate a stable molecular multi‐bilayer structure in thin films that arise due to the efficient self‐assembly of the bristles for temperatures <55 °C and PC‐rich surfaces, and therefore successfully mimic natural cell‐membrane surfaces. These brush‐polymer films exhibit excellent water wettability and water sorption whilst retaining the remarkable molecular multi‐bilayer structure, and thus have hydrophilic surfaces. These novel multi‐bilayer structured films repel fibrinogen molecules and platelets from their surfaces but also have bactericidal effects on bacteria. Moreover, the brush‐polymer films are found to provide comfortable surface environments for the successful anchoring and growth of HEp‐2 cells, and to exhibit excellent biocompatibility in mice. These newly developed brush polymers are suitable for use in biomedical applications including medical devices and biosensors that require biocompatibility and the reduced possibility of post‐operative infection.